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Sunday, August 14, 2011

Hiding from God

Sometimes when I am driving I like to turn my radio to the gospel music station and jam out to some good, clean gospel rock. A couple of days ago I had been doing a lot of driving and tuned in to this station. I'm not sure what was being talked about, but I remember something that the guy said and it has been on my mind ever since. He said something like,

"Ever since the fall of Adam, man has been hiding from God."

Many of us know the story of Adam and Eve. They were the first two people on earth and were placed in the garden of Eden and lived in the presence of God. They were only given two rules: multiply and replenish the earth, and do not eat of the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

At this point Adam and Eve are not mortal and the only way for them to become mortal is to partake of the fruit, therefore, the only way for them to multiply and replenish the earth, was to eat the fruit. So they partook of the fruit and became mortal, which allowed them to know good from evil, to sin, to feel joy, to have children and to one day die.

Now, back to the line, "Ever since the fall of Adam, man has been hiding from God." As soon as Adam and Eve partook of the fruit they were fallen and they suddenly felt the affects of sin. God came looking for them and the instant they heard His voice, which was already familiar to them, their first instinct was to hide.

Genesis 3: 8-10: And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from among the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.

As soon as they became mortal - which is what we all are - at the sound of God's voice they hid because they did not feel worthy to be in His presence. I was studying this today while I was sitting in church and I had to ask myself, do I hide from God? Do you ever hide from God? God came looking for His children, to check on them, so see how they were doing, and they ran away and hid.

I think that still happens. God comes to us to check up on us, to let us know that He is there and that He cares, and our first instinct is to hide from Him, to be afraid that if He finds us, if He sees us they waywe see ourselves, then He will reject us. I find that when I need God in my life, and more importantly, when I want God in my life and want to feel his love, I look at myself with mortal eyes and say, "Why would God love me?" and I hide away, thinking that I am protecting myself.

Perhaps that is why man has been hiding from God for thousands of years. We use our limited understanding, we base our worth on what the world considers important and we beat ourselves up for being mortal - for being human, for making mistakes and for not being perfect. And the minute we decide that we are not perfect, and never will be, we hide from God and figure that is better than having Him point out all of our flaws and sending us to hell for failing to be completely perfect every single minute of every single day of every single year of our lives.

But guess what, I've got some good news, God is incredibly merciful and loving and He doesn't care if we are perfect (not in this life), all He wants us to do it try, and to allow Him to help us try.

Going back to Adam and Eve. They heard His voice, they were afraid and so they hid. But God kept calling after them. He went in search of Adam and Eve until they came out of hiding and stood before Him, even in their sins, and God still loved them. He gave them the opportunity to have children, to experience mortal life and gave them, and us, a Savior that paid the price for our sins and made it so that we do not have to hide from God. When we hear God's voice, when He comes calling our names, we can stand before Him, no matter who we are, and He will love us, because we are His children.

When you play hide and seek with God, He will always win. He will always find you. He knows everything in heaven and in earth, which means He knows you, He knows your heart, He knows where you go to hide, and He sees who you really are - a precious spirit housed in a mortal body. Because we are mortal our first instinct is to hide, but it's so good to know that we will be found. God will even go to those in the deepest, darkest, scariest hiding places and He will watch over them and call after them until they are ready to come into the Light.